Palestinian & Arab women call to boycott Miss Universe 2021 hosted by apartheid Israel
We, Palestinian and Arab women, join the growing calls to boycott the Miss Universe pageant to be hosted in Eilat, Israel, later this year. Eilat is an Israeli town built on the ruins of Umm al Rashrash, one of the hundreds of Palestinian villages whose Indigenous population was ethnically cleansed during the 1948 Nakba. Not only are Palestinians from these destroyed villages prevented from returning to their homes, this ethnic cleansing has been systematically erased and denied by the Israeli settler-colonial regime.
Moreover, the pageant is supported by the Israeli Tourism Ministry which plays a direct role in legitimizing the theft of Palestinian land, the exploitation of Palestinian natural resources, the obstruction of the Palestinian economy and denying Palestinians their right to sovereignty over their own heritage and culture. Through its various campaigns including “Brand Israel,” the Ministry employs tourism to whitewash Israel’s war crimes and grave violations of Palestinian human rights, such as the massacre of Palestinians in Gaza. These campaigns desperately seek to cover up Israel’s decades-old system of occupation and apartheid.
Yet no propaganda can hide the glaring truth. Israel is increasingly being recognised by Palestinian and international human rights organisations and U.N. experts as one apartheid regime from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean sea. In this reality, Palestinians are systematically denied their fundamental rights and are subjected to constant state-sponsored violence.
The Miss Universe pageant claims to be an “inclusive organization” and “a sisterhood” that “empowers women.” Yet, a consistent and principled intersectional feminism would recognise that standing with the oppressed, including Palestinians, is a critical feminist issue. Indeed, the Israeli regime systematically uses tactics of gendered violence to brutally target Palestinian women, from incarceration to the destruction of homes and communities. As bell hooks wrote: “As long as women are using class or race or power to dominate other women, feminist sisterhood cannot be fully realized.”
In calling for a boycott of the pageant hosted by the Israeli regime, we Palestinian and Arab women, are joining thousands of artists and cultural figures worldwide who have publicly pledged their support for the boycott of Israel’s complicit institutions and have refused to cross this picket line. Indeed, the Palestinian Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) call is deeply inspired by the boycott and divestment movement that helped to end apartheid in South Africa. Grave and persistent oppression demand both international solidarity and meaningful action.
Boycott apartheid. Boycott the Miss Universe pageant 2021.
Signed,
Nai Barghouti, musician
Mariam Barghouti, writer and researcher
Najwan Berekdar, activist
Noura Erakat, Associate Professor, Rutgers University-New Brunswick
Dr. Yara Hawari, writer and academic
Annemarie Jacir, filmmaker
Janna Jihad, journalist and childrens’ rights activist
Emel Mathlouthi, musician
Manal Shqair, activist
Ahdaf Soueif, novelist
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